


Dragonborn Scholar

by Jewel2065



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23247193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jewel2065/pseuds/Jewel2065
Summary: A scholar's view of the events of Helgen and beyond
Comments: 12
Kudos: 1





	1. Foreword

**Author's Note:**

> Dragonborn Scholar  
> Author: Jewel  
> Created: 16.07.18  
> Posted: 21.03.20

**Foreword**

For most Nords, magic and scholarly pursuits are never an option. We are taught from infancy to hunt, fish, farm and fight. Our battles are fought with words, fists, swords and axes – never magic. Those few who have the gift and choose to follow that path find themselves disconnected from their families and clans, usually swept up into the College at Winterhold or pursuing the arcane in highly questionable ways out in the wilderness where they become outcasts and often hunted down when their studies inevitably fall into darker paths.

I was born to fisherfolk in Dawnstar and as my brothers and I scavenged along the shore for clams so my connection to Aetherius grew until one day a horker, crazed by the pain of an arrow in its hide, caught my littlest brother unawares. To protect him, I threw myself in the way of the charge – and fire poured from my fingers.

Within the week, a Breton woman come from the College to collect me. I was 13 years old and it would be years before circumstance took me to Dawnstar again. In that one act of heroism, I lost everything I knew and loved.

My story is unusual only in that my parents were actually very supportive of this sudden manifestation of arcane power in their only daughter. I had saved my brother in circumstances that could easily have killed me in his stead and for that alone they hoped to both protect and educate me: If I had stayed in Dawnstar, I would inevitably have been affected by the whispers and sideways looks even if I never cast another spell. They sat with me and explained all this as best they could, and the memory of that acceptance and support carried me through the first lonely, unhappy weeks. My parents' quiet hope that this opportunity would lead to a comfortable life carried me through without the resentment that many other students experienced. 

And so it was that I passed ten years in study, learning spells along with history, philosophy and enchanting. I came to enjoy the endless research, and became an assistant of sorts to Urag who ran the Arcanaeum with an iron fist.


	2. Dragons Return

**Dragons Return**

In hundreds – thousands – of years, no-one has had the opportunity to study dragons. All we have to work with today are scraps of legends and the bits of lore that have survived in written form in scholarly collections such as the Arcanaeum or the Order of the Blades before they were disbanded; there has been no way to verify any of these sources. 

Until now.

Today, a dragon appeared in Skyrim, landed atop the Imperial fort at the village of Helgen, and burned the village to the ground. The impact of its landing on the tower dislodged a cascade of stone, and its claws tore up yet more of the stonework.

Those few who survived Helgen – mostly those fortunate enough to be near one of the entrances to the fort and thus able to get into shelter solid enough to withstand the flames – reported an immense winged beast as big as the fort itself, black-scaled with claws and teeth as long as a man's torso, and a tail as long as its body. They spoke of gouts of flame bursting from the beast's mouth reaching from above the battlements down to the ground, and noted that it did not seem to care if those it burned were Imperial or Stormcloak or civilian. Immediately before each burst of flame there was an oddly metallic-sounding inhale, as though filling a bellows.

As a survivor of Helgen myself, I am able to confirm that those descriptions are more-or-less accurate, once you strip out the over-excited, adrenalin- and grief-fuelled exaggeration.

Helgen was only the beginning. 

Asked to assist Jarl Balgruuf's court mage, Farengar, in his search for information about dragons, I searched through a barrow near Riverwood in the company of a couple of Companions hired to guard me as I worked. I came away with the requested engraved rock, dubbed "Dragonstone" by Farengar, and a rubbing of the wall of runic lettering guarded by the most powerful draugr.

Farengar and I spent hours poring over that rubbing struggling to translate the dragon-runes which were very much akin to old Atmoran – but not close enough to make translation a simple thing. We shared our task with a woman known to Farengar who had a keen interest in the subject of dragons herself, and a fair amount of esoteric knowledge that clearly was based on more than just the rumours and legends known to all Nords.

Near the western watchtower outside Whiterun a couple of days later, another dragon – this one smaller and a dark sandy colour – swept over the plain, its breath flaming the countryside as it passed. I watched, alongside half a dozen of Whiterun's guards, the huscarl Irileth, and several of the Companions, as it hovered like a giant hummingbird, its wings flapping lazily as it held position, breathing gouts of flame before it spun away into the air and came round for another attack. In the air, it was a glorious sight: swooping and gliding as I have seen hawks and eagles do, despite its massively armoured bulk.

On the ground, however, it was ungainly, walking on its elbows as much as the clawed back legs. But it was no less lethal for all its awkward gait. It could turn swiftly, and it was so long it was hard to estimate where its teeth would be when its serpentine neck snaked round to snap at a victim with teeth as long as a man's torso.

It remained on the ground for only a few moments before it reared up, wings flapping frantically as it lifted itself into the air where it once again had manoeuvrability, speed, and reduced our combat effectiveness substantially since it was fast enough that arrows missed at least as often as they struck – and bounced off – the scales; the warriors had no recourse other than to provide targets for its flame.

That day we learned that the scaled body was not as tough as it first appeared: Much of the armour was in the head, where the bones were heavy and strong, but the skeleton was otherwise very light, suggesting that it is in some way kin to ordinary birds of prey; and despite its size and magical nature; and it was resistant but not immune to elemental spells. I estimated it resistance as perhaps a little greater than that which came naturally to a Breton. 

These factors meant that, as long as we kept moving, kept its attention divided between multiple targets, and had a mixture of archers, mages and warriors – we could slay a dragon.

The dragon plummeted to the ground, crumpled in on itself in the same way as a game-bird falls to the hunter's arrow, and all of us who had survived the fight gathered closer, barely believing that the beast was dead. 

It was then that we learned that one other being had been reborn in Skyrim – the Dragonborn.

The dragon's corpse burst into flame, the remains consumed in mere heartbeats; released by the flames, a swirling golden energy rose from the dragon's body and plunged straight into me. I felt strange: Dizzy and aroused, and full as though I had just eaten a heavy meal. With the dragon's soul came his name – Mir-Mul-Nir – and somewhere deep inside me a burning cold sensation erupted, latching onto that Word I had carried back from Bleakfalls Barrow.

The Word burned inside me, wanting – needing – to be spoken and so my mouth opened and it burst free into the air…

**FUS**

My mouth snapped shut even as the nearby guards – already staring at me in amazement – broke into a gabble of excited chatter, each man speaking over the others as they tried to tell me that I was Dragonborn – the first since Tiber Septim himself.

Honestly, my first thought was that the suggestion was utter nonsense: How could I possibly be a Dragonborn? Why would the gods choose me for such a momentous role when they could have chosen from any of a number of famously heroic Nords instead – starting with the Hero Twins who had guarded my back in the Barrow and whose immense weapons had done so much damage to the dragon once it was grounded? I was a scholar, nothing more. If not for my interest in the subject matter, I would not have been anywhere near Whiterun that day and the Dragonborn would not have awoken unless and until a dragon targeted the College.


	3. Help and Assistance

**Help and Assistance**

A few days later I found myself climbing the Seven Thousand Steps to the Throat of the World. 

Jarl Balgruuf was correct; High Hrothgar was indeed peaceful and removed from the world below. It also boasted a small library dedicated to the subjects of the Dragonborn, dragons, and the language of dragons. My scholarly instincts were roused, and, in addition to learning such arcane things as the Greybeards could teach me, I spent much of my time studying all I could.

It quickly became apparent that there were no surviving works that made a study of the physiology of dragons: Rather, it seemed that every author, diarist and observer had simply known "dragons fly" and left it there. 

How did they fly? Clearly – as I have already observed earlier in this thesis – their aerobatics have some similarities to that of a hawk on the hunt. The sheer bulk of a dragon, however, was clearly far greater than any bird and their wings did not seem capable of the immense effort needed to get that bulk off the ground and into the air, even with the manoeuvre I have witnessed where it lifted up onto the hind legs and beat its wings to achieve lift. As a child of Skyrim I knew very well that the largest birds hunt over water or high in the mountains and their wingspans are immense in order to counterbalance their larger bodies.

What did they eat? Whiterun knew to its cost that Mir-Mul-Nir might have been capable of carrying off a full-grown human in his armour – but did the dragon then eat that man? If it did, what happened to the armour, weapons and other accoutrements? After all a dragon does not have fingers with which to peel away armour to reach the meat beneath (although its hind-claws were clearly strong enough to do it, if lacking the dexterity). At Helgen, the black dragon had destroyed buildings and deliberately targeted people as they tried to hide from the flames – but so far as I knew, admittedly from the rumours carried by the survivors, it had not eaten its victims. 

Its behaviour in terrorising its victims as it hunted them was however definitely evidence of intelligence capable of focused malice.

Was it then merely an agent of destruction? Mir-Mul-Nir had been intelligent – in the moment of his death he had known that a Dragonborn was present; possibly he had felt the beginning of my involuntary absorption of his soul. 

Dragons are clearly highly intelligent beings. Our own history tells us of the Dragon Cult and the dragons they worshipped; and dragons have their own language – Dovazul – which also has the written form found in the ancient ruins.

All this led to yet more questions: What does my absorbing of a dragon soul feel like? Why did I do it? How do I do it? What happens to the soul thus consumed? Obviously I knew that the Word had latched onto the soul and used it as a power source. But what was the nature of the Word? Why did it require a soul when ordinary magic did not (other than the magicka contained in the caster's own body)? Was it then not an incantation but something else entirely? The Greybeards are certain that when using the Voice we are speaking the language of dragons and the evidence bore out that theory. But if it was merely speech, why did it require a soul to power it? I can speak the four Merish tongues, but those do not require anything more than my own intelligence and the time required to learn.

With the end of the line of Tiber Septim during the Oblivion Crisis had come the end of a fount of knowledge which now might cost Tamriel dearly. I found commentaries referring to the Emperor's guards – the Blades – who had themselves fallen into disfavour and ultimately been replaced by the Penitus Occulatus. Did the Order of the Blades survive the two centuries since? If so, would I then be able to find them and access any information they might have guarded? I found a suggestion that their base of operations had been a fortress high in the Jerrall Mountains and thought I might need to make a trip south.

It was unfortunate that even a cursory reading of history showed that "fallen into disfavour" was a serious understatement since the Thalmor had actively set about eradicating the Order and had slaughtered the population of Cloud Ruler Temple.

Hmm. Cloud Ruler. Dragons? Given the word "Temple" in the stronghold's name, did the Blades evolve out of the Dragon Cult; or had they merely taken over the fortress and repurposed it? I lost half a day or so before concluding that this was not the case: There was evidence that the fortress had been constructed by the ancient Dragonguard – Akaviri warriors sworn to the protection of the Dragonborn and the eradication of dragons. Did that mean that the more recent Blades held to that second statement as much as they had the first? 

However, speculation about the Blades might lead nowhere: After all, there had been no dragons extant in Tamriel since the time of Tiber Septim himself. No-one since then could hope to tell me what it truly meant to take the soul of a dragon. Every Dragonborn since had been limited – as were the Greybeards themselves – to learning the Way of the Voice which in essence was a learned technique that allowed the use of Words without a soul's power. Even Ulfric Stormcloak, who was widely believed to be the most powerful user of the Voice in very many years, had been educated by the Greybeards and followed their techniques – if not their peaceful philosophy – in order to access that ability.

I knew very well that these lines of enquiry could lead to years of study – but any time I spent in research would be paid for by the folk of Skyrim as more dragons arose from their ancient burial sites to ravage the land.

In the end, I had a week before I descended the mountain once more. My body felt heavier, less 'mine' than I had always assumed it to be for I now carried more Words and portions of the souls of the Greybeards gifted to me to accelerate my learning.

I wondered, then, whether I could transfer my knowledge of Words by siphoning off a bit of my soul – or the dragon souls I absorbed – to others, perhaps even enough to create a unit of dragonslayers.

I next sought the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller, an artefact of the Greybeards, the retrieval of which was meant to be a rite of passage. The Horn was deep in yet another ancient barrow, which led me to more speculation as I journeyed to an ice-bound ruin up towards the northern coast. If the retrieval of the Horn was a rite of passage, as I had been told, then had Jarls Balgruuf and Ulfric also been out there to retrieve it at some point during their youth? If so, who had then been despatched to put it back for retrieval by the next likely student? Alternatively, of course, and probably more likely, the Horn had been lost to the Greybeards for a very long time, and I had merely presented them with an opportunity to regain it.

This barrow, however, was not filled with lightly sleeping draugr. Instead, the draugr were already dead. Clearly someone had come through here ahead of me – and indeed that proved to be the case since the Horn was gone from its plinth and in its place was a note inviting the Dragonborn to meet with the tomb-robber in Riverwood. 

On the long walk south, in between complaints about the Oblivion-spawned thief, I continued to speculate upon the nature of dragons – and how it was that the location of the Horn could have been learned by someone not of the Greybeards in time for them to steal it ahead of me.

In the Inn, I was surprised to meet the woman with whom Farengar had consulted just a few weeks before. That she was perhaps the only surviving Blade gave me pause; my reading had showed that the Blades served the Emperor as spies as well as guards – so what was the play here? Farengar had clearly not known she was a Blade; he had accepted there was a mystery and ignored it in favour of pursuing his obsession with dragon-lore.

Delphine simply handed over the Horn and set about explaining something of the Blades' interest in the rise of the dragons. She was sure the Thalmor had something to do with it, or maybe Ulfric; but it was clear that that her own paranoia talking. She had no evidence to support her contentions.

I determined to stick with her for a while longer; if I was to progress my knowledge at all, I could only hope that she held the keys to the remains of the Blades' library. However, as a source of Blades wisdom, she was fundamentally lacking in insight; and for a woman who claimed to have been actively hunted by a tenacious enemy, she appeared very unaware of the political climate.

I was not going to infiltrate the Thalmor Embassy in the hope of finding information that I could discover myself by observation and study. To do as she wanted would be to make enemies of half the jarls of the province – the very people I might need to befriend in order to access their libraries and the legends handed down through ancient lineages; and through whose Holds I would need to be able to pass freely.

Certainly I was not going to throw away my life serving the whims of a woman who claimed to be the last of an Order whose purpose was to serve the Dragonborn. Of course that thought then led me to concern as to why I felt that way. Was that me or my Dragonsoul objecting to serving Delphine's interests?


End file.
